Podcast

The Growth Of A Carbon Company

Jacobi Carbons Inc., the largest worldwide manufacturer of coconut shell activated carbon, will be celebrating it’s 100th birthday in 2016. Jacobi has just built the world’s largest coconut shell activated carbon plant in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. The plant should come up to full capacity by early 2016, and the company’s expansion will continue from there, Jim Knepper, Vice President of Jacobi’s Resinex division, told Water Online Radio in an interview.

“We’re betting on the market continuing to grow, not just for activated carbon, but specifically for coconut shell, a green, renewable feed material to make high quality activated carbon products.”

One of Jacobi’s biggest markets is the ion exchange business. Knepper said, “Ion exchange as opposed to carbon, for example, is two technologies. Carbon is more of a removal of organic constituents, as a general rule, via the absorption mechanism. Ion exchange is [removing] anything that’s a charged particle, an ionic constituent, magnesium and calcium for hardness, for example. In this market, we’re really targeting selective nitrates removal, perchlorates. We’ve got a real fantastic product for perchlorate removal, especially out in California, and just wastewater in general, where ion exchange is used.”

Jacobi also sees a synergy between resin and carbon, in that the two technologies can go together, depending on what you’re trying to treat, as well as design criteria. Knepper said, “You can remove tannin and other color compounds with ion exchange resin, for example, in drinking water or wastewater. But you can also remove them with activated carbon, or you can have dual systems side-by-side.”

To hear the full interview with Knepper, including descriptions of new technologies Jacobi was promoting during WEFTEC 15, click the radio player below.